Is it common for 2 year old to not settle Til 9 pm

[Madallie]

Dd just 2 has never been best or longest sleeper but between phases we seemed to find something manageable with not too late a bedtime and not too early wake up. By that I mean not before 6am too often ( I am realistic).

Her routine now seems to be:
Wake - 7-7.20am
Nap - 1 or 1.30 Til 2.30pm. She won't go down any earlier and I always wake her by 2.30pm although often she wakes then by herself.
Bed time - in bed by 7.30 but does not sleep until 8.40-9pm with the later becoming more frequent.
Also length of nap doesn't seem to affect how long it takes her to drop off at night.

I feel 9pm is too late. Over the past month it's gradually crept from taking 20-30 mins to go off to 1-1.5 hrs. It's not even as if her nap is long. Today she only slept for 50 mins for example.

Dd does not seem upset or distressed at bedtime or while lying up there. She does not cry or call out for us, which I know is a good thing.

Does this sound common for a 2 year old? Is there anything I can do or do I just have to accept this is her new sleep time?

This is also my two year old. We have found that when he doesn't have his nap he does tend to settle better and we aren't still battling with him at 9-10pm. Don't get me wrong I love spending so much time with him but when you are still having to watch peppa pig late at night when we could be watching some grown up tele it can be frustrating.
However being a mum of four and he is the youngest I can assure you that her sleeping pattern will settle down.
What I have started doing with him is when I take him up to bed he helps me close the curtains and turn on the baby monitor before I tuck him in. That's our routine. And babies love a routine.

Mine is taking ages to sleep. There have been so many threads recently - I think it's a developmental thing. My ds did the same - but he settled down again. We didn't drop his nap, he still naps at 4.

Our DD generally wakes around 7.30 - 8. Sometimes as early as 6 though. No nap most days, she dropped it around 1 year. She only naps if she is ill. She goes to sleep around 8.30 -9 at night. She is 20 months. Your DD sounds wonderful, can we swap!

I'm another one with 2 year old twin girls that don't go to sleep till 9pm. They do sleep till 8.30am though so were not very motivated to change anything!

Yep, your 2 year old sounds wonderful. My 5 year old is awake right now and I have been trying to get him sleeping since 7.30pm. Have given up and handed over to his daddy now. (It's not always this bad though, he is usually asleep by 8.30pm on a school night.)

At 2 years old, he woke at 8am, had a nap of about an hour, and then was awake until 9.30pm every night. We didn't stress about it too much, but I wish in hindsight that we had taken the approach you are taking.

DD1 used to go to sleep at 10pm, up to the age of 4.5. She did sleep in which was lovely as I'm not a morning person.

Then DD2 turned out to be a lark and would go to bed at 1830, waking at 7am (which I appreciate is still good). One lark and one owl - drove me nuts as I didn't have a minute to myself.

Now DD1 is at school she's much more tired at the end of the day and we've just managed to get back to 8pm bedtimes over the holidays.

Mines used to go down no later than 7pm and a 3 hour nap in the afternoon. He now refuses to nap and isn't settling until 1:30am most nights. I have a nearly 7mo as well and I feel like tearing my hair out at times.

My two year old is an owl too. Have long stopped trying to get him to bed any earlier than he's ready. This is often 10 pm or later.
I now leave it up to him and he will ask to go when he's ready and be asleep within five mins flat. He gets up at around half 9.
I think people get a bit preoccupied with getting kids to bed early. As long as they have enough sleep, I can't see it matters. Sometimes you have to pick your battles. Trying for hours to persuade a toddler, who simply isn't tired, to go to sleep, simply isn't one of them

Reading this thread, it does seem that children are all different, just as adults have different sleep patterns.

Margery Daw, I feel your pain - you must be shattered! We had a few nights like that, but fortunately before ds2 was born. Bless you!

I figure it's all down to number of hours slept. I posted a thread a year or so back about how proud I was of DD1 recognising she was tired and taking herself off to bed - at 9pm. You'd have thought I'd posted in AIBU from the slating I got about her bedtime.

Another poster, ?MrsTP, came on and pointed out that the hours she slept for was the same as a child who goes to bed early and then gets up at 5am.

5am is not a time I'd want to see often so I'll be grateful for my little owl, even if I can only watch PG (well the odd 12A if it's sci-fi or fantasy with no human on human violence, or swearing - she loves Transformers) films in the evenings.

I found I got a lot of criticism for it, including on a holiday with my ILs over the summer where she, and therefore I, were banished from the family space at 8pm. Won't be repeating that holiday experience for many reasons but that's a major one.

At 2 my DD was going to sleep at a similar time or later. At 3.5 she will only sleep for 10 hours, usually going to sleep around 8.30. Tonight she was asleep by 7.30 so will be an early start tomorrow. In contrast DS aged7 will sleep for 10-12, hoping DD2 due in March takes after her brother and not her sister!

My 2 year old DD is about the same - often not asleep until later than 9pm though.

She doesn't nap at all in the daytime either .

My DD1 was like this at 2. When she dropped her nap (about 2.5) she settled to sleep straight away.

Elfeycat; you were banned from the family space! What did you do, sit in the kitchen? Did you husband not step in? In sure everyone on that holiday were happy for the quiet time in the morning, rather than being woken by a bouncing toddler at 5am...

You are lucky! I would not mess with that routine, just appreciate what you've got. You may be approaching an age where you drop the nap, and that will bring back the night bed time.

My nearly 2 yo barely naps, is full of beans until 8.30 pm, wakes through the night and is ready to go at 6.30 am. Thinks naps are for, well, babies. Highly stimulated by older siblings though.

It might be worth bringing bedtime earlier. They can get overtired then the adrenaline keeps them awake. Maybe worth a try.

DD1 was similar, never found a solution until she was 4 and started school! She didn't nap either though.

I wouldn't make 9pm her new bedtime though, it will be much hard to bring it back if she does start getting tired earlier, and if she is being quiet between 7.30 and 9 she is at least resting.

The other thing I'd look at is whether she is getting enough fresh air and exercise in the day, that has a big impact on sleep IME. 30

Aliwithtwins

It was 2 linked cottages, each with their own living room. Unfortunately we'd be coerced into giving up out living room for a nephew and when we did try to use it got grief off my BIL. We kicked nephew on the penultimate night as he banged on the ceiling when DD2 was crying with her teething. Luckily DH was in with her or I'd have taken him round to the next cottage at 3am. The only reason he didn't have a bedroom was PIL had grabbed a whole mini-suite and FIL wouldn't give up his sulking space.

DH was in a whole heap of trouble for agreeing to us going in the first place and not getting us out of it. I knew my ILs would not be tolerant of DD1's bedtime as I get a lot of PA comments from them. But then they aren't tolerant of many things. DH and I agreed at the outset of the holiday that we would just survive the week and not do anything like it again.

Still on the bright side after my ILs I can deal with disapproving comments about bedtimes very easily.

Yes! DD (2.3) has gone from a fairly civilised 8pm-7am (with interruptions) sleeper to a wide-awake at 10pm wild child. I'm more tired than she seems to be! Still up at 7:30 and naps for less than an hour a day. Torn between riding it out and trying to drop the nap...

Thanks everyone for your replies. I do sympathise with you all but I do feel a little heartened that I'm not the only one and I do recognise that some of you have it worse. For some reason all those I know in RL with dc around this age have chn who seem to be asleep by 7 or earlier and sleep 11-12 hrs plus take good naps. I was beginning to feel like I was doing something wrong.

I guess maybe i could try cutting her nap or just giving her half an hour or maybe leave it while she seems happy enough albeit it a bit frustrated to be up there but not asleep. My DM did say though that maybe she's just a toddler/child who at this age takes a long time to process her day and unwind. Could be truth in that I guess.

I suppose I would feel more relaxed about it if like some previous posters dc, she didn't wake Til 8ish. Last night she didn't go off Til just after 9pm but was awake before 7am this morning. It just amazes me how much things change with their routines/ sleep etc in just a few weeks.

My sons doing the same, but there is no chance he will stay quietly in his room, he screams and shouts and will not give up until either we relent and bring him down or into bed with us... I'm at a loss as to what to do next, normally he is brilliant at going down but not currently.

If I were you I would get rid of the nap - don't bother making it shorter, just have activities and get rid of it altogether - and potentially wake her earlier too. My 2yo goes to sleep at 7pm and drops off within 5 mins of being settled. She wakes very early though (5.30-6.30), and sometimes wakes in the night. But I prefer this to no evenings (I have 2 other children who are awake at about 6, so I'd gain nothing from having her sleep later anyway).

All depends on what you can live with. My only guaranteed time to myself is 7.30pm to 9.30pm (I go to bed then!) so I need that time to be sacrosanct!

DS is awake at 7am and in bed asleep at 6.30pm

No naps

Hi, I'm looking for advice over bedtimes for my 4.5yr old and 2.75yr old. They share a room and unfortunately we have got into a habit of lying in bed with them until they both go to sleep. This can take until 9pm sometimes longer before they're both asleep.

We want to try and move to a position where we can leave put them to bed and leave the room without either my wife or I lying down with them. However, we are aware this will be a big change for them and are there steps we can take to make the transition easier eg. sitting on a chair and gradually moving the chair further away and then out of the room.

I'd be grateful for any practical advice and tips about how to manage this successfully without too many tears.

Thanks.